Many of our founding fathers were progressive. But the ones with the most power were just rich assholes. If I remember correctly, George Washington stopped Philadelphia or the state of PA from trying to abolish slavery. Many also wanted to aboliah slavery in 1776, and... that didn't end up taking place.

They passed a law to stop slave importing that took effect decades in the future, and hoped shit-for-brains conservatives would naturally phase out slavery and avoid a civil war.

Whoops. Turns out we had to kill a bunch of traitors to get rid of slavery.

No, no, no. You just don't understand the founding fathers right. They never wanted to give people fundamental rights, they wanted to make a proud patriotic America! /S.

(Why does my sarcasm feel less and less sarcastic these days?)